Happy Halloween

W made this costume.

Not sure what face he's trying to make. A scary scarecrow, maybe?

In Which Piers Squirms in his Seat

Today, during a College of Humanities and Fine Arts luncheon, I sat down beside one of the faculty members our department just hired. The following conversation ensued:

"So, that student in your Spenser seminar, the one you told me about?"

yes?

How has she performed when you give assignments?

well, she is good--generally in the "B" range, certainly not the best writer, but pretty sharp.

"Well, I have just given papers back, and I've got a question about your experience with her. She asked for an extension, I gave her one, and what she handed in was about half the length of what I asked for. Is this going to be a recurring problem that I'm going to have to address, in your experience?"

that you're going to have to address? errr. . . well. . . (meanwhile, Piers thinks about how he has bragged on the insight and motivation of said student, and about how said student and several others have complained bitterly about the approach and attitude of this particular individual in his class--not to mention the material he is having them read. Conversations in which Piers has kept his mouth shut and his face neutral) . . . she's a single mom? maybe that was a mitigating factor this time?

Needless to say, Piers found an excuse to get up . . . I believe it was related to a chocolate chip cookie.

How do you know you're dealing with a hack?

Well, when the music he has composed and arranged includes the following characteristics:

1. A setting of "Angels We Have Heard on High" and its gloria in excelsis deo that includes a muzak/Kenny G - type accompaniment track
2. When the only form of modulation in his choral arrangements consists of Higher! Louder! Higher! Louder!
3. The text of one of the songs contains this gem: "maybe a carpenter building things."
   

Birthday Homecoming

We spent the 21st of the month--an Especially Significant Day--down in Birmingham, Alabama at Samford University's Homecoming. It marks ten years since I graduated, which doesn't seem possible. It was a relatively small affair, featuring a football game against my present employer, UTM. How's that for serendipity? The Little Boy enjoyed some smooth jazz sounds:


I got to show him the fountain where one night I stayed up for hours reading Virgil's Aeneid, and in which a bunch of us idiotic freshman boys danced the night the Atlanta Braves won the 1992 NL Pennant (that was a dramatic win, if you remember):


We got to Stay with Uncle N and Aunt C, in their recently-purchased home in the Bluff Park area--it's an old house with a lot of character, and they really like living there (great basement!). Below, Uncle N introduces The Little Boy to the household cat, Allie--she was a bit skeptical, as one might imagine:


Thanks, Brother and Sister-in-law, for hosting us so wonderfully, and a special thanks to Uncle N for entertaining The Little Boy--who wouldn't leave him alone.

Pig Pickin a success!

Weldon Thornton would be proud.

I'm happy to report that the Big Event was a success. You'll note that I used the time-honored materials, including rusty roofing tin and concrete blocks. Ugly, but effective:


(yes, I know he's really unpleasant to look at, but he's a pig, cooking over a fire. What did you expect??)

I had help--Pappy and Grammie came up from Atlanta to join in the party and help with the preparations. Oh, and they did get a little recreation with The Little Boy:

(you'll note who's still slaving away, shoveling coal)

And we had about 60 people come to the party, plenty of children, folks from church, from my department, other moms from W's playgroup. Inexplicably, most did not want to actually "pick" the pig, though I did get a few intrepid helpers:


Summary: Got up at 3, cooked the pig from 4 until about 3 in the afternoon, shoveled six bags of charcoal and four bags of hickory wood chunks, only caught the pig on fire once, Pappy and Grammie helped The Little Boy stay occupied and enormously happy (he was outside all day long), weather was great, folks brought plenty of good food with them, we made a relatively tasty NC-style sauce, and we've got about eight containers of barbecue in the freezer now that it's all said and done.

We'll do it again next year. All family, friends, and fellow Tar Heels welcome.

PPP, Stage 4

Pig regrieved from Yoder Brothers Meats near Paris. Looks good. Next step: get up at 3:00 tomorrow morning. Full report afterwards!

PPP, stage 2 & 3

Got a sheet of partially rusted tin, enough cinder blocks, and even some hay bales.

Made barbecue sauce. First batch wretched, second batch much better.

House cleaning tonight.

Tomorrow, I drive over to Yoder's, a Mennonite meat merchant, to get our piggy friend.

Need to get more hickory chunks and more charcoal, probably.

Grammie and Pappy coming into town tomorrow.

(it may not be significant, but I dreamed of Greenlaw last night . . . it was even more strange than I remember, and of course, no one knew me. I'll know I'm really affected if I start dreaming about Thornton Manor)

In Which Piers Receives a World-Beater of an Excuse

quoting from a student email:

i apologize for missing class today on wednesday the 11. i will have my paper to you tomorrow by no later than four as you said. i had a problem with a couple of cows back home and had to tend to them. but will be back after these college rodeos.

Here's the thing: I know he's serious (and he did get me the paper this afternoon).

Pig Pickin Prep (PPP), Stage 1

The weekend was a blur--we built the pit, procured several long poles to support the oinker, got chicken wire (the second time, we got the right size), charcoal, hickory wood chunks, and some smaller bricks. We lopped branches off of some shrubbery. We weed-whacked around the new crepe myrtles. We harvested a few late tomatoes (those poor plants look really pitiful now). I sprayed some weed-killer on the backyard dandelion farm.

This morning, we verified that we're getting the right size animal, and that it'll be prepared the way it needs to be. Our main concern now is either getting some proper pig-pickin barbecue sauce, or making it (probably the latter, seeing as we are where we are). Need tables and chairs. Need a few more cinder blocks, but I think we've got a source for those. Need to sweep out and clean the garage. Yard needs mowing, but perhaps a little closer to Saturday. Probably need more charcoal/hickory wood, and I know we need coffee.

It's going to get cold down here (i.e., nighttime temps in the low-mid 40's) just in time for early Saturday morning. Better pull out that ratty lined shirt and an old toboggan--just got my hair cut, so I'm not insulated very well.

Life With a Toddler, Volume 16

Naptime. Notice his hands and his feet.

October 3 was a Big Day

. . . because it was W's birthday! The three of us went to lunch together, then W and Piers went to eat at the town's Fancy Restaurant, The Opera House. We had a great conversation, about what we want to do this winter, about where we've been, about our families. . . and believe it or not, we said very little about The Little Boy. W really liked the restaurant (it's the first time we've eaten there). We don't get out together--just the two of us--often enough.

Many thanks to Uncle B and Aunt R, who volunteered to sit at home with The Little Boy while we went out.

I've known W since she was eighteen, and she still amazes me.

Giant OCR3

During our visit to Nashville (more later, with pictures!), I visited the Allanti Bike Shop on Franklin Road in Brentwood. It's a serious bike store, the kind with $5000 - $7000 bikes hanging on the wall, made by French companies you've never heard of before. Fortunately, they are also friendly and helpful. I told the salesman that I wanted an entry-level road bike, but didn't really know which would be the way to go. He did a body scan, ran some numbers, and recommended this bike. Unfortunately, they had none of the right size in the warehouse, so I couldn't hop on one and ride the trainer for a few minutes, but I assured them that I'd be back.

So nice to meet folks who are interested in helping, who understand that any road bike is a big investment, and who take the time to get it right.

English 111

Here's the thing about teaching first-year students that I enjoy (most of the time):

Variety.

Those of us who have taught/are teaching large numbers of eighteen and nineteen year olds get to experience a rush every time we enter the classroom--because we never know what we're going to find. The same student can be a livewire one day, then come in just two days later and be a half-asleep (or completely asleep) slug. As they get older and more experienced, the peaks and valleys even out--but during that first year, wow. You find yourself adjusting on the fly to what they're giving you (particularly in a writing class, where in most cases we're not willing to spend the time lecturing).

Here's the other thing: I teach at 9 and 11 on MWF. I like my 9:00 class better than my 11:00. Not because they're necessarily smarter, but because there's a better gender balance and they seem more cooperative. In fact, I have some really sharp students in the 11:00, but as a group they're hard to work with. As fate would have it, I tend to do a better job with the class I like less, because I've already seen how the plan worked in the previous class--and I've adjusted my approach.

Turnaround is fair play, though. I remember that from high school into college, my teachers tended to wonder if I was mentally present (I was) because my face didn't register too much (again, from the other side of the podium, we have to admit that we feed off of those reactions and get concerned when we're not getting anything). Now I've got three or four really bright guys in my 11:00 class who are giving me nothing. Could this be why I like the 11:00 class less? Sure it could.

Excuse me while I climb out from under this rock

It's been that kind of week. I was up against a deadline or two, and had to spend most of my time catching up on that work--which, of course, I'd been ignoring--even as I prepared for my ten class meetings and three committee meetings and three student advising meetings this week.

Hey, it's good work. I just haven't had much time to catch my breath. On the upside, I've worked at a pace I've not been able to sustain since February and March of 2005. My guess is that the addition of the Wellbutrin has really helped. . . Zoloft alone was making me into a zombie. Another upside: the adrenalin helped me lecture the fire out of Castiglione's Book of the Courtier yesterday.

This is a big weekend, especially for W. We're going to Nashville to celebrate her birthday (which is next Tuesday) by. . . get this . . . going to the Titans-Cowboys game on Sunday afternoon. She's as thrilled as can be.

Confession

Sometimes, I miss studying novels and short stories.

That is all.

Long Faces

I handed back the first graded papers to my first-years today. Always a moment of anxiety, because I know there will be those 2 or 3 that will wonder why they've never gotten a C before. What's more, I always feel like I've been too generous.

Speaking of generous, last Thursday I caught a student messing with her cell phone. She was sitting on the front row, and evidently didn't think that I could see what her hands were doing under the 'desk.' I broke out of my remarks, and said loudly, "put - the - cellphone - away." She jumped like she had been stung. She got me back, though, registering in the end-of-period assessment that she didn't like 'sitting and listening' for the entire class time. eh.

Life With a Toddler, Vol. 15

Pray for us; The Little Boy is on his first day wearing. . .

big boy underwear.

He told me all about it on the phone just a few minutes ago.

In the category of "Things Piers Fears" . . .

. . . but for no good reason, since it's years away:

The Little Boy's education.

If you follow the link, you'll note that she is espousing a pretty intelligent point of view, but I doubt that the right people are listening.

In which Piers begins to fear his students

I'm reading 'personal essays' as the first assignment for the year. So far, I've read stories about:

• A student who got drunk on the bus ride to school one day--and I mean falling-down drunk. Needless to say she got in considerable trouble, including a stint in a boot camp style "Alternative Learning Center."
• A student who decided to "borrow" his uncle's brand new Jeep Cherokee from the church parking lot to go off-roading--during the church service. Naturally, he bogged it down, and had to walk back to the church to confess his adventure. Priceless line: "The inside of the Jeep was of all luxury you would expect from a quality Chrysler vehicle."

Next, I expect to see something about shoplifting, or drug running, or a counterfeiting ring.

Wise

Every Fall semester for the past four years, I've gone to a little medieval-renaissance conference at the University of Virginia's College at Wise. I've made some good friends there, a couple of good contacts, and learned a lot. The conference is heavy on the "medieval" part, which is OK with me, seeing as how medievalists seem to be less stuffy than we Renaissance scholars. Plus, I learn a lot.

So that's where I have been since Wednesday--got back to work on Monday, and spent all day catching up.

That's all from here for today.